A Strange and rather hilarious Situation
by Enelya
Summary: The Fellowship find themselves in a rather strange situation, and Frodo is most definitely screwed............. Sequel to "How to teach a Dwarf to Swim and other things"
1. Screwed in every sense of the word

Disclaimer: what makes you think anyone in their right mind would sell LOTR to me?

A/N: this is for those of you who can't seem to get enough of How to teach a Dwarf to Swim and other things, and who asked for more about Frodo's…er…predicament. Sequel to How to teach a Dwarf to Swim and other things so you should read that first. (No offence to Son-Of-Durotan, but I personally think How to teach an Elf to Rock Climb was a bit of a let down and I am truly sorry about that. I honestly didn't know he was gonna write it like that! Cross my heart and hope to die, and if I'm lying I will go to hell where…(for the full list of horrible things that will be inflicted upon me, see Aragorn's apology in chapter one of DTS (that's Dwarf To Swim, and I'll be using it cos it's too much bother to write out the whole thing)

Another A/N: Yes, I'm perfectly aware that most of you think that slash is sick and twisted and disgusting and wrong, but I've also heard it described as 'the source of all non-chocolatey goodness in the world' and even though I don't like it quite that much, good slash fanfics are funny and especially if one of the characters ends up getting pregnant, as with my fic. I like watching them suffer all the bad things about being a woman with none of the benefits. Mwahahahaha!

Warning: anybody who can't stand reading about either Frodo or Aragorn or both being bagged, put down and ridiculed should not read this fanfic. This is an honest warning, so take notice of it and don't flame me for it. You chose to read it, if you don't like it the close button is located in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Rest assured that I'm not going to go into the full details, it's bad enough reading fics like that (not that I do, of course), it's gotta be a helluva lot worse writing them! :-(

So…yeah. Enough with the AN's, I should probably start writing the story.

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Their faces said it all: disbelief, horror, confusion, uneasiness, and even slight hysterics. Disbelief, however, was the main drag, mixed with a 'how on earth are we going to sort this out?' look.

"I can't believe it. I simply don't believe it. How on earth did this happen? How on earth _could_ it have happened?"

A sigh. "I don't know, this seems like a strange dream. It's amazing though, isn't it? It seems impossible, but…well, you know what they say, love can do anything."

"I'm scared of how he's gonna react when I tell him."

"You mean you haven't told him?"

"Of course not! That'd be a nice thing to come home to: 'hi, this is completely unheard-of and not to mention going against everything I've known, but I've just found out that I'm pregnant and you're the father. How was the rest of your day?'"

"You have to tell him."

"Why? He might dump me as soon as he found out. It's not exactly something we'd planned."

"Do you think _we_ planned on any of this? Of course not, but it's happened and now we have to work with it. And the first step is breaking the news to him. He _is_ the father."

"What if he hates me?"

"I guarantee that if he does end up hating you, which I doubt he will, he'll hate you a lot less than if you didn't tell him and everybody else knew. The least you can do is tell him yourself what's going on. Or would you rather he heard it from the local gossip?"

"No! No. I have to tell him, don't I?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Sooner rather than later, is my advice. Now would actually be a good time, I think he's just got in."

"_Now?_ But…but…oh god, what'll I say?"

"You'll be fine. Good luck."

There was the sound of someone treading on the stairs. Him. The father. It was all so strange.

"Hi."

"Hi."

There was a very awkward silence.

"I need to tell you something very important. Very, very important. But please stay calm when I tell you."

"Sure. What's the big news?"

"I'm pregnant."

"WHAT?! You mean…you and me―"

"Yes."

"Oh god."

"If you're gonna leave me just do it, okay? I want to get it over and done with."

"Leave you? Oh no, no, no. This is wonderful."

"You mean…?"

"I love you, you know that? I'll always be there for you. We'll get through all this, and everything will be just fine."

"LIAR!!" A near-empty chocolate box was thrown in the direction of the person in question. It fell onto the tv and slid off, leaving several brown smears on the screen.

Frodo groped around and found another box. Opened it. No strawberry creams, just more blasted toffees. Ooh! A hazelnut! He chewed thoughtfully on the morsel, and went back to watching the antics of people so beautiful as to be ugly, speaking in strange, half-sobbing voices, and all of whom seemed to be going by the names Ridge, Thorne, Brooke, Skye and Taylor. Otherwise known as a soapie.

After the initial shock of being told that he was going to be a mummy in eight months' time had worn off, Frodo had migrated into the living room, emerging out of it only to inform people (namely Sam) that he had run out of suitable food, and to use the bathroom and even then only in the early hours of the morning when nobody else was awake. This arrangement had been in effect for exactly one week, during which Gandalf had, with many disgusted looks, retreated into his rarely-used bedroom that doubled up as a ground-floor attic so he could watch something on tv that didn't consist of people dying, giving birth, being born, marrying, divorcing and shagging. Over and over again. He had solved the problem of all the things cluttering up the room by shoving most of them into the middle of the hallway. These various things had formed a dangerously-teetering tower with only a small space between it and one of the walls, which was rather difficult for Sam, Merry and Pippin to get through and impossible for Legolas and Aragorn. And since it formed a barrier between them, the kitchen and the shower, the situation was getting rather desperate. Trying to have a shower in the backyard using a garden hose is a cold, sanity-and-patience-testing business at the best of times, combined with a notable lack of privacy. Water restrictions don't make it any easier.

Things were definitely not looking good in the house of the Fellowship.

"Aragorn, Legolas, dinner's ready." Sam crouched next to the gap, holding a saucepan, a ladle, two plates and two forks, and proceeded to dole out large chunks of two-minute noodles (a mixture of chicken, oriental and curry flavours, but under no circumstances beef) onto the plates before passing them through to the other side. To at least attempt to make dinner as normal as possible, Sam, Merry and Pippin also sat in the hall, and anybody who might be able to hear them but not see them would have thought it was perfectly normal.

"How's the gardening going, Sam?"

"Not too bad, but there's this tree that's looking a bit odd and I want your opinion about it."

Legolas choked on his noodles. Sam didn't ask other members of the Fellowship for their opinions about gardening. He'd never asked them, and since Legolas had known him for roughly 5000 years, he was fairly sure Sam hadn't woken up that morning and decided to change this particular habit. Something was going on.

"Er, what sort of tree is it?"

"A…a palm tree."

"Ah, of course, a palm tree."

"Yes."

"That's actually alive."

"Yes."

"In the north of England."

"Yes."

"This early in spring."

"Yes."

"I was of the opinion that the palm tree is a tropical plant."

"Yes, but this one's a…special arctic palm tree. Very rare, them." Sam nodded violently.

"So this is a new type of palm tree."

"Yes."

"Sam, if this is a new type of palm tree, why hasn't it been in the papers? Tv programs? Radio stations?"

"Well I'm not really supposed to tell you, it's top secret and all and we're supposed to be keeping quiet about it in case other people find out and try to steal these special arctic palm trees because they want to say they invented them."

"Oh, of course. Because everybody knows that arctic palm trees are going to be the biggest influence on our lives since sliced bread."

Sam reflected that the amount of sarcasm an Elf could cram into one sentence was nothing short of amazing.

"Well, could you just come and look at it?"

"I don't think I can help you much really, I haven't had any experience with palm trees. Oaks, cacti, magnolias, but not palm trees."

"Yeah, but you're an Elf, you've got that connection. With nature," Sam added hastily when he saw that Merry, Pippin and Aragorn had taken it as a suggestive statement rather than what he actually meant. "Could you just come and look at it, please?"

A defeated sigh noise came from the Elf in question. "All right." This resulted in Aragorn, Pippin and Merry exchanging a lot of 'nudge nudge wink wink' looks and grins.

"Have fun connecting with nature!"

"Or perhaps something else entirely."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

"Oh grow up, you three." Legolas rolled his eyes and followed Sam out into the garden. "So where's the special arctic palm tree?"

"I don't want to talk about the palm tree, I want to talk about Frodo."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"We can't keep living like this."

"What, in a house?"

"Living in a house is fine. Living in a house with a huge pile of junk in the hallway, a hole in the kitchen roof and a lounge room that's been turned into Frodo's 'tissues, chocolate and soapie marathon nest' is not."

"Very good point. What are we going to do about all this?"  


"We need to tell Aragorn about Frodo, he's not going to be completely clueless forever, I'm amazed that he bought your story about Pippin's second cousin's positive fat."

"That wasn't a story, that was just some random words that came out of my mouth before I realised I'd said them, and he wouldn't have bought it at all if Merry and Pippin hadn't woken up to what was going on and started a drinking competition before he had time to understand what I was saying."

Sam sighed. "Whatever, okay? We need to get Gandalf to go back into the living room so we can get rid of the stuff that's blocking the corridor, and although I don't relish the idea of sharing a room with Merry, Pippin, AND a pregnant Frodo, I'm not too keen to keep on eating dinner in the hallway for Valar knows how long."

"We need all the help we can get, and that means Merry, Pippin and Gimli."

"Yes, I was thinking that Merry and Pippin can get Aragorn and Frodo out of the house, so you, me and Gimli can get everything back to normal."

For a split second, both Legolas and Sam wondered how they were going to get them out of the house. But they didn't really have to look for an answer, because it had been imprinted on their brains since before they found out about Frodo.

"Swimming," they said simultaneously.

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Hehe, I hope you all liked my first chapter, I've never written slash before so tell me if I'm doing something wrong, won't you? (You can do that by reviewing, and even if there's nothing wrong you can review and tell me that there's nothing wrong.)

And there's going to be lots of appearances by minor characters. Mainly Elves, I think, cos they're quite……………..unusual, and they'll know how to help Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship.

And to those of you who might ask why I've decided to make Aragorn, to quote from Blackadder, 'as thick as a whale omelet', it's because…well…that's the way I'm used to writing about him, and there's a lot of stuff in this fanfic that relies on him being unable to see what's right in front of his nose. I know I bag him a lot, but I just can't resist it! One day I'll try to write a fanfic in which I do not bag Aragorn. At all. I will bag someone completely different, probably Elves, but definitely not Legolas (well, not too much) cos I think I'm allergic to bagging him. He's the object of my affections (not that he'd want to be, I imagine. Too bad, he's stuck with it.)

Please, please, please review! I want at least ten, do you hear me? Ten!

Nine? That's not too much to ask for, is it? One for each member of the Fellowship who's still alive and an extra one cos you're nice?

I'd settle for eight and a half, but it'd be a bit hard to read a review that's been chopped in two down the page. Make life a bit easier for me and make it nine.

Nine for the fanfic writer doomed to do geography…

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!

~Enelya


	2. Of Twister and 2 Minute Noodles

Notes to my faithful reviewers:

LilyBaggins: "Fellowship in modern times" fanfics have got to be the best. Glad you like it.

Valarauko: thanks for reviewing, what tells me I'm writing this properly is that you seem to like it and you say you don't usually read slash, so that means I'm doing it right, right? Right?

Angel 1: I'm writing more soon hopefully. Thanks for reviewing, reviews best things I can get. Except possibly vanilla coke.

Anelith: wow, brilliant! You like it? That's good. I don't go for slash much either, but I just decided to give it a try. Hopefully I'm writing it properly cos you seem to like it.

Kayloo: you reviewed Aragorn's Bachelor Party, one of my other fanfics didn't you? Glad you like this and you liked How to teach a dwarf to swim. I'm busy writing chapter four of ABP.

Harlequin: yay! Somebody else who's reviewed before! You dropped your laptop on yourself? Hopefully you didn't kill yourself. RIP Harlequin, killed by a falling laptop. Doesn't sound good. Glad you like this one.

Thankyou everyone for reviewing! And review again! Please! I like reviews.

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Legolas and Sam went back inside and prepared themselves for a lot of smirks, looks and nudge nudge wink winks, but went they got back to the hall they found it strangle deserted. There were all the signs of a meal (namely, discarded forks and plates and two-minute noodles spilt on the carpet) but the people in question were nowhere to be seen.

"This isn't good."

"Of course it isn't good, there's noodles mashed into the carpet and if we don't clean it up soon it'll go mouldy and start to smell."

"I'm not talking about the carpet, I mean the fact that we don't know where Merry, Pippin and Aragorn are isn't good."

"Well where would they be? They'd better not be playing a prank."

"They could be in the loft with that poster of Sarah Michelle Gellar they think we don't know about, they could be in Gandalf's bedroom, in which case that's their problem because there's no way in hell I'm going in there, or―" Just then they heard a voice.

"Left foot green!"

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!"

"Hurry up and spin it somebody, this is bloody painful!"

"Why are you complaining, you're not the one who's almost doing the splits!"

"―They could be playing twister."

Since Frodo was occupying the lounge room (which contained the tv) the rest of the Fellowship had had to find other methods of amusement (that is not meant to be taken in a dirty way!). As a result, the hobbits' bedroom was strewn with various board games, which made moving around rather difficult, especially since Merry and Pippin had moved their mattresses onto the floor so they could play Scrabble in their sleep (although rather amusing the first time, the novelty had worn off for the rest of the Fellowship after they had discovered that they were likely to drool on the board as well).

Sam and Legolas entered wearing very grim faces, although it was hard to look grim when they saw Aragorn, Merry and Pippin's rather humorous situation, being tangled together with the bedclothes and the twister gameboard. "Aragorn, I think Anduril's getting a bit cold." Legolas knew Aragorn's psychology and was not disappointed.

"WHAT?! Andy! Don't worry, I'm coming!" The lump in the sheets currently known as Aragorn attempted to run at full speed down the hall and into the bedroom that he and Legolas (with much protesting) shared, but he only got as far as the end of the bed before Merry and Pippin acted as a suitable anchor. This made Aragorn almost strangle himself with the sheet, slip on the twister board and fall headfirst into a pile of very strange-smelling pieces of material that might have been clothes at one point. Some muffled words emitted from the pile that now contained Aragorn, the only comprehensible word being "sod".

Half an hour, a lot of swearing, several questions along the lines of "what have I done to deserve your company?", and a pair of scissors later Aragorn was in his room administering what seemed like every cold-and-flu tablet, drink and nose-spray in existence to Anduril. Merry and Pippin had also been freed from the clutches of the sheet, although both the bedclothes and the mattress had suffered considerably and were now existing as a lot of torn up pieces of fabric. Well, at least there was a lot of stuffing to patch up the mattress with.

"So why do you want to talk to us?" was the first thing that came out of Merry and Pippin's mouths, apart from "where's the Scrabble?".

"What?" Sam was preoccupied with trying to work out exactly where he'd put the scissors, and Legolas was busy getting away from the pile of dirty clothes.

"How stupid do you think we are?" Legolas and Sam looked at each other and silently agreed not to give their honest answer, "we know you're planning something."

"We will explain everything in the cupboard under the stairs, so go there."

"But we're hungry!"

"Go there via the kitchen then." The two hobbits trooped off to said kitchen, followed closely by Sam. Legolas cautiously entered Aragorn's bedroom and found him sitting next to the bed, which contained Anduril with a hot-water-bottle.

"How's it going?"

"I think he's getting better, but he just looks so weak. What if I can't cure him? What if he doesn't pull through?" If Aragorn had been any less butch he would have been crying, but as it was he just looked like he was near hysterics.

Legolas was about to point out that swords were inanimate objects so they weren't alive in the first place and therefore couldn't really die, but he decided that this was a point that Aragorn would not appreciate. Instead he tried to find some comforting words and almost succeeded. "Try not to think like that, it'll be fine but it needs know that it's loved, so I think you should stay with it for the rest of the night."

"Yes, that's a very good idea. Thankyou Legolas." Aragorn beamed and turned back to Anduril. Legolas rolled his eyes at the ranger's back, left him to it, and went off to find Gimli as he was needed in the house meeting. As if on cue Gimli appeared, in a good mood apparently and giving the Elf a friendly "och".

"Hi Gimli, there's a house meeting now and you have to come."

"But I'm hungry!"

Legolas saw a sandwich sitting conveniently on a shelf and handed it to Gimli. "Come on, you can eat it while we talk."

The meeting was started by Legolas and Sam explaining the situation to the others, all of whose responses were "words fail me". The group sat in silence for a while.

"How could it happen? I'm not sure about men, but with hobbits it's the girls who get pregnant." Pippin looked confused.

Merry looked thoughtful. "Maybe Frodo's a girl."

Sam grabbed the nearest thing he could reach (which happened to be a pencil) and implied to Merry that it could be inserted somewhere rather painful.

"No offence, but he is sorta girly. I mean, he's the one who usually cooks around here and he's never got married or anything, and he does look a bit girly."

Pippin came up with another explanation. "He could've had a sex change, I mean he's got lots of spare time and surgery's become so advanced…"

Sam was looking rather explosive and the mental pictures Legolas was getting were not pleasant. "It doesn't matter how it happened, the fact is that Frodo is pregnant and we have to do something about it."

"Aragorn?"

"He doesn't have a clue. We need a day to get everything sorted out and Aragorn needs to be out of the house while we're doing it. That's where you two come in," Legolas looked at Merry and Pippin. "You need to get Aragorn out of the house and keep him out of the house for a day."

The two hobbits in question looked like they'd been asked to stop liking Sarah Michelle Gellar. "And how exactly are we supposed to do that?"

Sam handed them three pieces of paper. "These are all-day passes to get into the water-park about two hours' drive from here, plus free food and drink. It has the largest slides outside of Euro-Disney." Merry and Pippin gibbered appreciatively.

At this point Gimli made a surprised/disgusted noise and held the sandwich as far away from him as possible. "I've heard of strange food cravings, but this is just scary…"

"What's in it?" Merry was looking interested.

Gimli showed them what appeared to be a cheese, two-minute noodle and peanut butter sandwich. Realization suddenly dawned on Merry's face. "Hey! That's mine!" Since Gimli didn't look like he wanted it anymore, the hobbit in question grabbed the sandwich and bit into it with apparent relish, while the others looked on with badly-concealed disgust. Even Pippin looked slightly queasy.

The awkward moment was ended by Aragorn's voice echoing through the near silent house. "Guys? Everybody? Where are you?" Upon realizing the gravity of the situation they all attempted to get out of the cupboard at once, which was a rather stupid idea as they all got stuck in the doorway. Their combined efforts was too much for the carefully stacked miscellaneous items, and a small avalanche resulted, pinning them down and making a considerable amount of noise. Aragorn opened the door and was greeted with the sight of all five of them in a rather uncompromising position (complete with sandwich), half buried under various cleaning equipment and an umbrella (Aragorn tried not to laugh, but it was very difficult as the mop hanging over Legolas's hair made him look like he had dreadlocks). The meeting was pointedly adjourned after that, and to prevent Aragorn from suspecting anything they all joined him for what was fast becoming the nightly 'Scrabble, Monopoly and Twister Marathon, Brought To You By The Sobs And Rustling Of Chocolate Wrappings Coming From The Lounge Room'.

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Sorry, this is a bit short but I haven't written any more yet and I don't want to keep you waiting. But the updates might take a bit longer from now on because on Tuesday I go back to school! Oh, the horror, the horror! Okay, school isn't so bad but there's a lot less time for writing fanfics. Sorry about that, if only there were more hours in the day… okay, I could skip school but I do like it most of the time and education is very important. Gets you a proper job in the big wide world because as much as I like writing fanfics the pay's atrocious. But the hours are good. Pity they don't pay you, otherwise I'd be a full-time fanfic writer. Hate to think what the electricity bill would be like though…

I promise the next chapter will be longer, I just have to write it first. Will probably contain chocolate, madness, tears, strange food combinations, Gandalf, and Elves. Possibly not Elves in the next chapter, but they will feature in the fanfic. Legolas (my favourite Elf) is in already, and I plan to include Elrond, Arwen and Haldir. If you want me to write in other Elves tell me in reviews. I like reviews. Reviews are good. Almost as good as sprite for getting me hyper. Hehe.

~Enelya


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